18/2/22 17:40
Another Potential Covid-19 Lab Leak Clue - WSJ
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OPINION | REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Another Potential Covid-19 Lab Leak Clue
Investigating the pandemic’s origin is still worth the effort.
By The Editorial Board Follow
Feb. 17, 2022 6:43 pm ET
Security personnel keep watch outside Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei province,
China, Feb. 3, 2021.
PHOTO: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
The world may never learn the origin of the novel coronavirus, but intriguing information
keeps materializing even in the pandemic’s third year. A pair of scientists from Hungary
may have stumbled into more evidence supporting the theory that Covid-19 emerged
from a laboratory.
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18/2/22 17:40
Another Potential Covid-19 Lab Leak Clue - WSJ
A paper posted recently suggests that genetic data from soil samples sent to a Chinese
firm for sequencing could have been contaminated by an ancestor of the Covid-19 virus.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), where some scientists believe the pandemic likely
began, has used the same firm.
If the samples were analyzed in early 2020, it’s possible they became contaminated when
other scientists were studying Covid-19 as it began to spread. But it would be suspicious if
the analysis was done before the end of December 2019, when China says it first identified
the virus.
The Hungarian research article is a preprint, or early manuscript that hasn’t been peer
reviewed, and some scientists are already contesting its importance. While a lab origin of
Covid-19 has become more plausible over time, some developments proved
underwhelming on closer examination.
Yet the world already knows enough to take the lab-leak theory seriously. The virus
emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan. The WIV has a long history of studying
coronaviruses, and it also conducted gain-of-function experiments that can possibly make
a virus spread more easily or enable them to infect a new species. U.S. officials raised
questions about its lab-safety record before the pandemic.
Beijing also isn’t transparent about scientific research, especially around Covid-19. Some
of the international scientists charged with investigating where the virus came from had
clear conflicts of interest. Americans who cooperated with the WIV also haven’t been
transparent enough.
Several House Republicans wrote last month to President Biden “to express our concern
with a lack of responsiveness to requests to Ranking Members from our Committees on
the topic of the origins of COVID-19.” GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has vowed that
Republicans will investigate if they win a House majority this fall. Trying to find out where
the virus came from, and to what extent the U.S. was involved, would be a service to global
public health.
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